


Till I have the possession of everything she touches

by AuKestrel



Category: All About Eve (1950)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Vignette, Yuletide, Yuletide 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:54:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuKestrel/pseuds/AuKestrel
Summary: For ioanite, who suggested: *Addison and Eve have a daughter who they've molded to have the best (well, most interesting) traits of both of them. While attending a party in her late teens, Addison watches her deftly navigate the social shoals with pride."I hope this is some small part of what you envisioned. I know much more about the deb society now than I ever dreamed; and you will be pleased to know that there were still debutante presentations in ~1970 NYC.
Relationships: Addison DeWitt/Eve Harrington
Comments: 9
Kudos: 11
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Till I have the possession of everything she touches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ioanite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ioanite/gifts).



People trust me with their secrets; they shouldn't.

You see, society and theatre (and aren’t they really the same thing? - someone, please, offer Mrs. Albert Knickerbacker her smelling salts) are built on the sand of lies: lies of omission, lies of commission, old-fashioned deceit, dishonesty, and compounded misunderstandings. 

It takes only a rudimentary understanding and a halfway-capable grasp of human nature to begin to sift the truth from the lies. 

I feel I was particularly capable as a child. And - after twenty years of observing her - I imagine Eve may have shown her own rudimentary understanding. She certainly has parlayed her unique talents across her range into many opportunities that somehow still manage to surprise far too many people. 

At any rate: myself. And secrets. No, I am not at all trustworthy, but then, people so often overestimate their own ability to dissimulate, and almost always underestimate... well, me, on the whole.

They see a jaded, bitter critic. As dear G.B. was wont to remind us, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” They always omit the balance: “Those remaining, critique.”

Criticism is a useful skill: the jaded eye notices imbalance, imperfection, imprecision. These dyssynchronies are all that is necessary to assess performances both on and off the stage.

And at the moment, I am at my most mellow: happily engaged in watching virtuoso performances on the stage set by my birthright and ancestry: my daughter’s debut among the society where I made my own bow, these forty years past, and my mother and father before that, and their parents, all the way back to that peripatetic paean of our family, Captain Andries Tjerckszen DeWitt, and his doughty helpmeet Jannetje.

It naturally took no time at all for Eve Harrington (DeWitt) to become the newest shining light in Hollywood’s tinseled firmament. I accompanied Eve as necessary and cultivated the attentions of Hedda and Louella as only I could. Jimmy, Walter, and I knew where the real power lay, and, as is so often true of women, both Hedda and Louella were easily won over and just as easily manipulated.

Nor did it take much time for Eve to realise that having a child was her entree into those gilt-bedecked mansions: a _Life_ piece on a rodeo birthday party for a seven-year-old along with seventy of her closest friends was all that was needed. The fact that Margo and Bill had managed twins less than a year after their marriage may or may not have been a spur. I would not, of course, deign to speculate.

We did our respective duties, she as womanly as she could pretend to be, I as manly as I knew how, and when the result appeared not quite nine months later, we both agreed that our part in that was done. I believe that may have been the most in charity with each other we have ever been before or since.

Emerens Cortland DeWitt made her appearance at the civilised hour of five p.m. on a sunny April day. (Aren’t they all sunny, in California? -The unceasing cheerfulness of the weather is in itself an affront, which is why I insisted that Eve return to New York for her lying-in.) Eve, of course, attempted to make some small representations as to the name, but when I politely offered the compromise of Gertrude as a middle name, her ideas subsided quite quickly and no more was heard. Emerentje, you see, was the sister of Captain Andries, and as renowned for her beauty and wit in her day as Eve is in our own. Emerentje was kidnapped by Indians at a young age and returned unharmed; this too has always been regarded as a significant event in my family. 

My own Emerens proved as resourceful and clever as her ancestress. From a young age she learned quite quickly how to gaze adoringly at her mother when cameras appeared. Her frocks were always dainty; her stockings, smooth; her shoes, shiny. Fortunately for Emerens her mother’s attentions were fleeting and mostly harmless, and she could not have had a better role model for sincere duplicity than Eve Harrington: the key to leading a double life, after all, is poor communication.

Each summer, Emerens left behind the gaudy days and nights of Hollywood and returned with me to our home in Manhasset, Boudewijn. While she naturally was expected to dress for dinner, she had a great deal more freedom: riding, tennis, swimming, sailing, golf, and nary a photographer in sight for months.

As she grew, Emerens became more and more fond of Boudewijn, and New York itself. It was thus not a difficult task to convince Eve that the Westover School was the appropriate place for Emerens, as it had been for my own mother. As Emerens had entered an ungainly stage at twelve, Eve put up no more than a token resistance. I moved back to the city, ostensibly so one parent was near to Emerens (dear Hedda’s assumption) and flew back to California just often enough to keep Eve on her toes.

When Emerens left the Westover School, she had not seen her mother in almost two years. I had arranged a surprise for Eve: another play written for her, not Lloyd Richards this time, but by a young playwright whose own brilliance burnt so bright in his own eyes that Eve would get short shrift from him should she resort to her old tricks. 

For I knew when Eve saw Emerens, who bid fair to surpass her mother and that long-ago Emerentje in beauty and grace, some honey would be needed to reconcile her to her role as a society mother while Emerens was launched. 

Eve had suggested the San Francisco Cotillion but I quashed that notion with little more effort than a raised eyebrow. Emerens was not going to marry any jumped-up nouveau from San Francisco, any more than she was going to marry a film actor from “Hollywood,” let alone a godforsaken communist in Haight-Ashbury. After all, Emerens already knew more than a dozen suitable young men, and had her choice of a Whitney, an Elmendorf, and a Barents for her debut. To assuage Eve’s pride, I suggested that we include the International. That was sufficient to reconcile Eve to the change of venue: the prospect of not one but two balls at the Waldorf would delight any soul as venal as hers.

The one thing I had not counted upon was the other debutantes at the International. Naturally even Margo Channing could not hope for an invitation from the Society of Daughters of Holland Dames - but Margo’s name, and Bill’s too, of course, were more than sufficient to ensure an invitation to the International Debutante Ball. One would have surmised - and this can be my only excuse - that Margo and Bill, happily ensconced on their farm in Connecticut, would have had no interest in anything of the sort. Margo had been playing at the recluse so well and for so long that it came as quite an unpleasant shock to learn that invitations from Margo were more highly regarded even than invitations from Babe Paley. 

But one telephone call from Hedda, and another one from my mother, confirmed it: Babs Channing Sampson, the tremulous light of her own Connecticut society, would make her debut along with my daughter, Emerens Cortland DeWitt.

This naturally stirred up the gossipmongers and tabloids, to the point that Emerens came to me one morning. I naturally fired the housemaid immediately, but that was beside the point, since the damage had been done. I acquainted Emerens with the facts of the matter, and it is to her credit that she immediately understood - with her mother’s shrewd grasp of strategy - how best to navigate these dark waters. She enlisted my secretary and went off to telephone several of the other girls, quite casually, to suggest getting to know each other better. Her own debut at the St. Nicholas Society’s St. Nicholas Festival and Debutante Presentation went as smoothly as anyone could have hoped. She danced with her father, her escorts, the Dutch ambassador, the British ambassador’s son, and many others. Her dress - Valentino, of course, lace-trimmed with pearl beading at the bodice with a plisse-hemmed organdy skirt suitable for the deepest courtesy \- enhanced every part of her, even drawing an accolade from her mother, and her reception dress - orange, for the St. Nicholas Society - was a unique creation of sari silk from India, hand-beaded with porcelain and rhinestones, that caught the attention of all who saw it.

Several weeks later - in fact, just the day before the International - Emerens managed to be photographed at a soda fountain along with Dorsey Lind and Ellen Elcock - and Babs Sampson.

Walter sent me a telegram: “Well played.”

The fact this item had made the papers in California, however, led to an unrestful night for me, but Emerens appeared at breakfast as serene as the dawn. She floated through her day, the hairdresser, the last-minute fitting, and her mother’s inevitable attention-mongering tantrum, with the same serenity. I heard her placing some telephone calls before she went to dress: Ellen, Marguerite... and, again, Babs.

Following the grave acknowledgement as she assumed her place in my milieu and our dance to the mellifluent tones of Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, I stood in the shadow of a column of roses, watching Emerens dance, laugh, twirl; watching her befriend Babs; watching her sip champagne with Margo and Bill; and I felt eyes upon me. I looked up, up and across; and there was Eve, watching not Emerens, or Bill, or even Margo. She was watching me. And when she caught my eye, she raised her glass.

I considered a moment; then I returned her toast. We had earned it.

**Author's Note:**

> For ioanite, who suggested: *Addison and Eve have a daughter who they've molded to have the best (well, most interesting) traits of both of them. While attending a party in her late teens, Addison watches her deftly navigate the social shoals with pride." 
> 
> I hope this is some small part of what you envisioned. I know much more about the deb society now than I ever dreamed; and you will be pleased to know that there were still debutante presentations in ~1970 NYC.


End file.
